


Everything is Transformed

by DoreyG



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spirit World, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8124154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: "One moment I was in the palace, preparing a nice cup of tea for my grand-niece and myself, and then..."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allekha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/gifts).



"You seem lost."

"A little, perhaps," he smiles, and turns to properly face the voice that spoke, "one moment I was in the palace, preparing a nice cup of tea for my grand-niece and myself, and then..."

"You were here," the woman nods understandingly. She's younger than he thought, but with a certain wisdom in her gaze that speaks of ambiguity in that area. Her white hair, as pale as the moon, is piled high on top of her head and she's wearing robes vaguely reminiscent of the fashion in the Northern water tribe, "it is sudden, for a lot of people. One moment you're going around your normal business, the next... Well."

"You're in a strange place where colors don't seem to work as they usually do," he provides teasingly, glances around at the vivid green of the hills and the glowing blue of the sky and the odd flashes of purple entwined with the trees, "and where strange creatures seem surprisingly common."

"Most people call them monsters," the woman provides, and then laughs brightly. It carries further here, echoes right to the furthest hill in a way that he chooses to find more charming than anything else, "I must say, you are taking this far better than many."

"How do many react?" He asks, genuinely interested.

"Screaming, sobbing, yelling for the Avatar to save them from their fate," the woman shrugs, looks a little uncomfortable. As if she doesn't like to see people unsettled, no matter how ridiculous it may be, "I can understand it, of course, but... This is a nice change."

He nods slowly, thinking the matter over.

"...As long as you realize what is actually going on?"

"Do not worry, I may look like a doddering old man but I am still capable of some sense," he reassures her, allows the more troubling aspects of his thoughts to fly away. He has long practiced being serene as a mountain lake, and this seems like the perfect situation to put his practice into effect, "it is not a surprise."

"It's not?" The woman asks, looking endearingly relieved at his reaction.

"The fact that I look like an old man is, in fact, evidence that I am an old man," he nods, watches with some sense of pleasure as a wry smile bursts over the woman's face, "and death is something that happens to all old men, eventually. I have had a full life, a happy life. I have existed a lot longer than many, and have lasted long enough to see my nephew happy and capable of building a family of his own. I cannot rage against the inevitable, not when I have been given so much."

"You are a wise man," the woman murmurs, still smiling at him, "I feel that the Spirit World will be far better for having you in it, Iroh."

"So you do know my name!" He chuckles, and watches as her smile grows a touch bashful, "I was wondering, since you seem to know so many other things about me. Would you be willing to tell me your name, in exchange?"

"Of course, I am sorry for not doing so sooner," the woman coughs a little, straightens her back like a noblewoman preparing to be introduced to someone of great importance, "I am Yue."

"Yue," he repeats, retaining his own smile even as he dips into another brief period of thought, "forgive me if I am being nosy, but as I recall Sokka - a good friend of my nephew - once loved a woman named exactly that."

Yue's smile grows a little more wistful, a little more distant, "he did, and maybe one day he will do so again. But that, hopefully, shall be in the distant future. And for now..."

"You are happy to let him live out his own life," he says gently, reaches out to take her smooth hand between his two wrinkled ones, "and to create your own existence here, among vivid colors and strange new creatures and the grateful dead who have found a whole new place to call home."

Yue stares at him for a second, stunned. And then slowly starts to smile again, the expression spreading across her face as bright as the full moon, "yes."

"Would you mind an extra companion," he asks carefully, watching that brightness with a certain amount of serene pleasure, "along the way?"

"I definitely wouldn't."

"Good," he says, and means it absolutely. Yue doesn't protest when he gently takes her hand, and guides it to his elbow. She only smiles at him, grips calmly as they stride away from the patch of grass where he appeared and onwards towards new adventures, "because, while we are here, I wish to see if I can reunite with a young man that I used to care for. A spirit, by the name of Lu Ten..."


End file.
